Secret Printer ID Codes May Be Illegal In the EU

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "In response to a query from a member of the EU Parliament, an EU commissioner issued an official statement (.DOC) saying that, while they do not violate any laws, secret printer tracking dot codes may violate the human right to privacy guaranteed by the EU's Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. If you don't remember what these are, Slashdot has discussed the issue before. In short, most color printers print small yellow dots on every sheet in a code that identifies the printer and, potentially, its owner. The EFF is running an awareness campaign, and a couple of years back made a start on deciphering the yellow dot code."

Comments

Simple enough fix

[KublaiKhan]

So to stay private, then, one should print sensitive documents on yellow paper?

Re:Simple enough fix

[MagicBox]

The reason I chose that printer? Konica-Minolta supplies open-source printer drivers that compiled on my AMD64-Ubuntu box. Maybe you should chose an OS that doesn't force you to spend your money on garbage peripherals just because it has limited support for everything

sorry I couldn't resist.......

Re:Simple enough fix

[arthurpaliden]

It is called a dot matrix printer.

Printing the Frosty Piss

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it totally prints yellow dots when you want a picture of the Frosty Piss!

Ha! Suckers!

[Anonymous Coward]

My ... printer .- never -- prints ..- such . silly .-.. codes; -- In --- fact .-. I ... have . never .-.. seen .. such ...- a . thing! ...

I was printing this story out

[LM741N]

but all I got was yellow dots

No big deal

[PPH]

All of the documents produced in our office have a large brown ring stamped on them that can be traced back to the coffee mug of the engineer that produced them.

Re:Prevent your printer from being registered

[ray-auch]

Or better still, offer to print someone else's tax return (or other document)...

Re:Privacy is over-rated.

[mh1997]

It's the government requirement of these laser printer codes that's an invasion of privacy.

Privacy isn't the only problem, it affects business and profits too. We were counterfeiting $20 bills and had to switch our whole operation over to engraved plates and old printing presses. Overhead has gone through the roof.

Now with Clinton and Obama talking about mandatory health insurance and unionization, we could be out of business next January.

I wish the government would just leave me alone and quit watching every move I make.

Re:Human Rights or European Citizen Rights?

[flyingsquid]

Apparently not, what with all of the cameras in the UK (some of which talk back).

Quit your complaining. Didn't the government just raise the chocolate ration by 20 grams?

Re:What about digital cameras?

[joostje]

aptitude install exif
exif pict7801.jpg

There you have the non-binary exif information.

Re:What about digital cameras?

[Butterspoon]

I believe that Canon has explicitly stated that the feature has to be manually turned on, and that there is a non-trivial setup process to get it working. In other words, the privacy implications of the feature are essentially nonexistant.

Not true. I can "spy" on you by secretly turning on the feature on your camera. Because the setup is nontrivial, you're unlikely to spot that it's suddenly become active. I leave it as an exercise to come up with a scenario where this would be useful.

Also could be the thin end of the wedge...